Pierce Ekstrom

New write-up of our political scandal experiments for SPSP's (@spspnews.bsky.social) blog. We find that partisan voters allow politicians to get away with hostile, defensive "explanations" for scandal, esp when the politician is high-status and when party goals are at stake

spsp.org/news/charact...

I was trained in Social Psych and now I'm very happy here. If you (as a student or mentor) have questions about life across disciplines, feel free to reach out. 3/3

And it's not just me and Ingrid. As I say every year, we have 6 faculty with explicit interest in political psych and an unknown number of faculty with secret interest in it.

So when I say "political psych" I mean that very broadly. 2/3

We're recruiting PhD students to join us at Nebraska! Spreading word:

Whether you (or your student's) current home is in Psych or PoliSci, if you're interested in political psych, you could be a great fit.

I run a joint lab (www.pierceekstrom.com/ekstromlab) with Ingrid Haas (paclab.unl.edu). 1/3

Why most polls overstate support for political violence Misperceptions about the popularity of violence increase public support for it — but you can help change that.

Why most polls overstate support for political violence
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/most-polls...

ISPP Small Grants are back for 2026! 💡 $50k total available; request up to $5k for research or network/workshop projects. Open to current ISPP members. Proposals due Dec 1, 2025. Selection uses a lottery among proposals that meet all criteria. Apply: ispp.org/funding/smal...

We argue that moral expressions—that signal one’s sense of right and wrong—are highly sensitive to social norms. These norms can amplify moral expressions (eg social media) or restrain them (eg work settings)

See our new paper on How Social Influence Shapes Moral Expression:
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Pre-Print: osf.io/preprints/ps...

We thought partisans would *punish* in-party apologies. Instead we found that apologies & denials of wrongdoing worked equally w/ in-partisans. So we think partisans "enable" rather than "incentivize" denials of wrongdoing. (Posted this when it first came out online but re-upping)

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Our paper on partisan reactions to political scandal is officially published in PSPB: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Partisans were more receptive to defensive, hostile "explanations" for misconduct from in-(vs out-)party politicians. Seems driven by desire to win > identity-protective motive

Sinclair Lab The Learning & Behavior Change Lab at Rice University, directed by Dr. Sinclair

🌟 Excited to share that I'm recruiting PhD students in Psychology for my new lab at Rice University this cycle (Signal boost appreciated!)

To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com

Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...

Screen shot of Jenna Finch being interviewed by Omaha's 3 News Now.

CYFS research affiliate Jenna Finch, asst professor of psychology, is exploring the factors that shape students’ transitions from second to third grade.

▶️ Watch news story via KMTV 3 News Now: www.3newsnow.com/lincoln/unl-...

#EdResearch #STEM #EarlyMath #NUforNE #GoBigResearch #NSFfunded

Policy agendas of the American state legislatures - Scientific Data Scientific Data - Policy agendas of the American state legislatures

Here's a treat for state politics and policy researchers: Ethan Dee and I published a dataset in Nature: Scientific Data with the universe of state legislative bills since ~2009 coded by 28 policy areas. We used a machine learning model built off open source components.

Replacing "Best wishes [etc]," with "Tomorrow comes,"

Thanks!

The political slant of psych research (e.g., left vs. right) is not related to replicability, although more slant (in any direction) may be associated with less replicability

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

I’ve been hesitant to promote some “regular” work lately bc I do a lot of “polarization” research - I don’t think that’s the biggest problem in politics right now. But I think Zeenat’s project gets at *the* problem of democratic erosion, and I’m very grateful and proud to be a part of this work.

So pointing out when politicians violate democratic norms might reduce support for them – a little bit. But changing vote intentions (even in our hypothetical scenarios) was hard, and in the real world – where these “call-outs” will be contested – it’ll be much harder.

A bar graph showing approval and willingness to vote for senators engaged in undemocratic behavior. Bars vary across four combinations of two manipulations: 1) democratic principles reported before vs. after judgments of the politician and 2) Low-Salience vs. High-Salience undemocratic behavior. Approval for senators engaged in undemocratic behavior was consistently low (at or below 2.5 on a 5-point scale) across conditions (but was highest in the condition where violations were not made salient and judged before participants reported their democratic principles). Willingness to vote for the undemocratic senator was consistently at or above 4 on a 7-point scale, but again, was highest in the condition where violations were not made salient and judged before participants reported their democratic principles

Here’s the figure from the more representative study. Interaction wasn’t significant, but you can see each treatment made some difference on its own, but they didn’t add together nicely. We think both made violations more salient.

If Ps just don’t notice democratic violations, maybe pointing them out when Ps read about them will make them salient and reduce support for those politicians (“This policy is inconsistent with the principle that people should be allowed to protest in groups!”). This worked - small effect.

Our students were unwilling to vote for those politicians too (phew). Ps in our nat’l sample, though, were at best “not sure” how they’d vote, and unwilling to vote against the in-party. So we did see some willingness to choose party over democracy. Could we reduce that?

Plus, we find strong beliefs that things like civil liberties and rule of law are important to a democracy and that the U.S. should be a democracy. Among both Dem and Rep participants, in both samples. Also, Ps consistently disapproved of undemocratic policies/behavior.

If Ps don’t know what “counts” as democratic, having Ps articulate their principles pre-judgment should give them clearer evaluative standards and reduce support. Principles reported post-judgment should be weaker, to rationalize their support for in-party violators. Neither happened (consistently).

Participants (Ps) read about hypothetical in-party senators who each violated some fundamental democratic principle (e.g., free assembly, free press, rule of law). We recruited two samples (one student, one demographically representative of American partisans by age/race/gender).

New preprint with my grad advisee, Zeenat Ahmed. When and why do Americans prioritize party wins over democracy? Not because they don’t know what democracy is. Maybe, sometimes bc they don’t notice that in-partisans are violating democratic principles. There are some caveats. osf.io/preprints/os....

Come join us! I have startup funds to hire a postdoc for Fall 2025 at Rutgers to study intergroup relations. The job ad is at jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/249... & evaluations begin in 1 wk (5/16) w rolling evaluation. See 🧵below for a write-up on what I'm looking for in a postdoc. Please share widely!

*If your paper was a poster OR paper at ISPP in Santiago, that paper can be nominated.

Last call for ISPP 2025 Awards Nominations! (@polpsyispp.bsky.social) I'm helping review for two early-career paper awards.

-"Early career"=within 8 yrs of PhD.
-Awards are for papers presented this past year at ISPP (in Santiago).
-Nominees must be current ISPP members.

ispp.org/awards/sigel/

The one of the side, though it is fun to me how desolate the breezeway looks in B&W.

I've really enjoyed all these photos, but I really really like that shot of Elliott Hall.